Originally posted by jiffyprogasm
Hello all:
1. Maverick811: I do have zone alarm up and running on the win98 machine. I have only tried to log on from my original (win98) connection to aol. The machines are connected together via 10/100 5 port switch using TP5 (twisted pair) cables. The idea of using a router seems interesting, as the many attempts to log on are frustrating to say the least. NAT? could you explain?
2. uraloony: Any good suggestions for a differing ISP?
3. To all, I have looked at my preferences and all appear fine.
As always thanks. JIFFYPROGASM
P.S Read my comments on the Geekhood over forty post. I guess that I am now gonna learn about either a proxy server or a router? With this quest for knowledge does this make me a "Hacker", rofl

Okay, NAT is short for Network Address Translation - essentially, it translates local addresses (from your LAN) into one global IP address that is seen by the world and vice-versa. As information is requested from a machine from within your network, NAT translates your internal IP address (Ex. 192.168.1.10) to an external address (30.xxx.xxx.xxx) assigned by your ISP. To an outsider (of your LAN) the request looks like it is coming from that one external address, no matter how many machines you have on your network. Then, the information is sent back to that one external IP addresss and again NAT is performed so that is translated back into your internal LAN address (192.1.1.10) so that your machine recieves the information.

If you had the resources and access availability, I'd drop the AOL account and look into getting an always on connection via cable or dsl. I'd check around and see if either of those services is available in your area. Do a search on www.google.com to see if you can find a cable/dsl provider in your area. Then, check your local Best Buy, Office Depot, etc, or online at either www.dlink.com or www.linksys.com for a Cable/DSL router. If you decide to go this route, I'd buy a router with multiple ports - you'll plug all of the computers into the ports on the router, then plug your cable/dsl connection into the WAN port on the router. That would work just fine for a cable or dsl connection.

If you decide not to go this route, then I'd look at getting some proxy software for your 98 box - the proxy software will do essentially the same thing as the router (NAT), and that may solve your problems with AOL. I still think that it appears that AOL is seeing that you are trying to use multiple computers per AOL account.

Hope this helps...